“There’s something here, but I can’t get at it! Help me get him out.”
Wallace cut through the safety harness and hauled him out onto the snow. Conrad slid his hand under the seat and tried to drag the object out. It wouldn’t budge. He wiggled it from side to side to loosen it and managed to get the tips of his fingers behind it. Slowly, it started to edge towards him until he was able to grasp it and pull it out. It was a black leather case.
“There’s a memory stick inside. We have to get back down the mountain as fast as possible. Whatever is on it is important enough for the Generalissimo to send back one of his minions to get it.”
Black and baleful, the sky threatened a serious blizzard. The wind had whipped into a frenzy howling across the mountain. They could barely stand up against its force. It seemed to change direction: now lashing at their faces; now pushing them from behind.
“Keep going! Don’t stop!” Sasha yelled, as Wallace plunged face forward into the white stuff.
They half walked, half tumbled down the mountain. The trail had been completely obliterated by thick snow. Conrad stopped to take his bearings. For a split second panic rose in his chest then his military training took over. He hadn’t experienced conditions like this for years. Most of his fieldwork had involved fighting the heat of the desert in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He whipped out his binoculars and peered through the blinding whiteness. Momentarily, the wind parted the curtain of snow. He could just make out the sharp ridges of the outcrop of rock where they had left the trail bikes before the blizzard had put them off course.
“Over there,” he shouted above the cacophony of noise.
The path was covered in snow, but it wasn’t as deep and the wind wasn’t as fierce as higher up. Still, it was only a matter of time before the mountain was impassable.
They hauled out the bikes and sat astride, ready to kick-start them into life. Luckily, Conrad’s started first time. Wallace turned his engine over. Time after time the engine sputtered and died.
“Damn it! If it doesn’t start you’ll have to go without me! There’s no pillion seat on these bloody contraptions.”
Suddenly, the engine burst into life. “Thank you, God!”
“I’ll go first,” Sasha said. “Keep me in sight and stay in the centre of the track. It’s barely visible. One false move and we’ll be over the edge.”
Wind and snow lashing at their faces, they slid their way down the icy mountain, acutely aware that an uncontrolled skid could send them hurtling into oblivion. Gradually, the path widened and took them away from the edge.
“We’re almost there,” he shouted.
Just below them the lights of the village burned hazily in the gloom.
*
The tension in the air was palpable as Dreher inserted the memory stick into his laptop. Suddenly, an image of a black snow crystal filled the screen then quickly faded. For a few seconds nothing happened. He tapped the enter key impatiently. Still nothing happened.
“Whatever is on it is locked in,” he muttered.
Conrad leaned over and tapped in ‘Generalissimo’. Immediately, ‘access denied’ flashed onto the screen. He continued tapping words and phrases – ‘snow crystal’, ‘black militia’. Still nothing happened. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“Let’s try this,” Wallace said, tapping in ‘Operation Black Crystal.’
Nothing happened. He slumped back into his chair and then bounced up again. He punched in the words again, but this time in capital letters. ‘OPERATION BLACK CRYSTAL’ zoomed onto the screen along with various icons.
He placed the cursor on an icon of a crystal. The screen filled with the map he and Conrad had seen in the facility in the mountains. Another icon brought up rows and rows of statistics. He scrolled down the columns of figures.
“It’s incredible! It’s a list of their finances: all the deals they’ve done to raise money to fund the Black Militia. Look at this: 429,372,900 North Korean Won for military secrets relating to the harvesting of uranium. How much is that?”
“About £2,000,000,” Conrad interjected.
“Another 7,000,000 Euros from the sale of weapons to insurgents in third-world countries. The last entry is for 60,000,000 Swiss francs from a Middle Eastern agent for Ethan Bateman’s blueprints.”
“There are years of payments here,” Dreher commented, “all in alphabetical order. See if you can narrow down the payments by date.”
“Oh my God!” Wallace inhaled deeply. His eyes were glued to an entry two rows up from the bottom of the screen. “It’s a payment for Foley’s kidney. The bastard!”
“The Generalissimo is absolutely unscrupulous. If Sophia is right he’s completely amoral, but he’s also methodical and patient,” Dreher interjected. “There are payments here dating back to 1989. It’s unbelievable. He’s been planning all this for more than twenty-five years.”
Pages of details about the organisation filled the screen. No names, just codes to identify nationalities, gender, expertise, and field agents in various countries. It outlined the career structure of the Black Militia with established routes for promotion within all categories. Only five were accorded inner circle status with just two holding six black crystals.
“I can’t quite take it in. It’s like a plot for a novel,” Wallace said.
“It’s a plot all right, but a very real one!” Conrad got up and paced the room. “How the hell can we stop him when we don’t even know where he is? There has to be something on here that will give us a clue. There has to be! Go back to the icons,” he instructed. “Try that one.”
Ernst clicked on another icon that resembled a crest. Immediately, another map flashed onto the screen.
“That’s odd,” Wallace remarked. “There are no place names, just geographical features.”
He peered intently at the screen. The thread of blue was obviously a river. There was something very familiar about it. Suddenly, it hit him.
“It’s an old map of Shropshire with the place names and points of interest removed. That’s the connection! Joanne Howard, Foley’s body in that old well outside Shrewsbury. That could be where they’ve gone!”
“A Lear jet is on standby at Geneva airport,” Conrad said. “I’ll brief Pearce in London then I’ll travel to Shropshire to join you, Ben. We’ll fly you down from Heathrow by chopper. Pearce will brief MI6 and the Prime Minister. We may have to call in the military. There’s not much you can do this end, Ernst, but be alert.”
Wallace was wondering how much he could tell Butler. He would have to play it by ear. His DI wasn’t stupid. He already suspected there was something going on other than the murders. The men would have to be given some plausible reason for a search party… an armed gang at large? Anything but the truth.
There were a number of old mines, limekilns and a few dilapidated historic ruins scattered throughout Shropshire. They could be holed up anywhere. It would take a lot of men to cover the area.
“Your Chief Constable will ensure you have the resources,” Conrad said. “Men will be brought in from other forces, if necessary.”
Wallace had come full circle back to the scene of the original crime.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
London, England
The man in the black pinstriped suit looked up as Conrad entered Breakdancer’s inner sanctum. Tall, heavily built, slightly crooked nose, hair unfashionably long; he looked more like a heavyweight boxer than secret service. He noted Conrad’s muscular frame, the confident manner, the precise military tones. This was a man to be reckoned with, a man who trusted his own judgement.
“Come in, Major Conrad,” Clive Pearce said, waving him to a leather armchair.
As usual, Pearce was cool, unruffled and self-assured. Nobody would have guessed that he had a catastrophic global crisis looming. But that was why he was head of IMIC. He dealt with crises as though he were organising a monthly board meeting.
“You know Gilbert, MI6.” Conrad nodd
ed.
“Major, I want you to tell me all you know about the Generalissimo.”
“You know about him!” Conrad exclaimed, looking accusingly at Pearce.
Pearce held up his hands in a warning gesture. This was not going to be an easy meeting.
“Well, not exactly. When we sent Foley out into the field, he encountered the man you call the Generalissimo. As you know, Foley was working on top-secret work before he went to GCHQ. It wasn’t coincidence that he had been sent there in the first place. We knew all about Lynes, but we wanted to use him for our own purposes.”
“Why the hell wasn’t I told?”
Ignoring the question, Gilbert continued. “Foley came face to face with him in some so-called clinic in Switzerland. His final telephone call was garbled and incoherent. He was going on about a man in a mask, an ‘army’ in black uniforms. He sounded dazed as though he had been drugged up to the eyes. You know the rest, poor sod. We didn’t know about Macaleer until Pearce informed us that two military men had disappeared. It was a stroke of pure luck that Macaleer’s body was identified by the pathologist.”
“So MI6 commandeered his body.”
“National security is involved so we had to hush it all up. Pearce reports exclusively to me. I report directly to the Prime Minister.”
“You knew about this all along?” Conrad asked Pearce accusingly.
“Pearce put two and two together when you informed him about the Generalissimo and the facility in the Alps. How likely is it that there would be two masked men up there?” Gilbert asked with a hollow laugh.
Conrad related the whole sequence of events. His own encounter with the Generalissimo and Wallace’s infiltration of the facility.
“We went back up there yesterday before dawn. They’ve disappeared,” he said flatly. “Moved out lock, stock and barrel. There’s nothing left to indicate that anyone has been there for years. The ‘army’ Foley mentioned is a small, well-disciplined force of around three hundred men and women, most of them highly skilled in specific fields. It’s run on strict military lines with distinct ranks. Different coloured insignia depicting their speciality and seniority. Each member has a code; no names. Everything is conducted in total secrecy on a need-to-know basis.”
“There must be some clue as to where they’ve gone?”
“We discovered a militiaman in the Generalissimo’s quarters. He bolted and escaped in a chopper, but it crashed in the blizzard. The pilot was already dead when we got to him, but the sniper was still alive. We found this.” Conrad handed over the memory stick. Pearce inserted it into his computer. In total silence they watched as Conrad called up the map.
“It doesn’t look much like Switzerland,” Gilbert commented.
“It isn’t, it’s a map of Shropshire. I’m convinced that’s where they’ve gone and that there’s a connection with the bodies found there. That’s not all.”
Gilbert gasped as columns of statistics filled the screen. “It’s unbelievable!”
“Wallace is convinced the Generalissimo’s plan will be implemented in New York City. Probably during the conference on world poverty at the United Nations. He thinks they’re planning an assassination. Hundreds of delegates from countries all over the world will be in attendance, including our Prime Minister and the President of the United States.”
“Washington and Langley have already been informed of a possible assassination attempt,” Pearce interjected, “but I don’t want them to know about the Generalissimo yet.”
Pearce wanted to keep quiet about the cyber attack until they had scoured Shropshire. They had to find him before he saturated cyberspace with the Black Crystal virus. If they didn’t…
Wallace was already in Shropshire with every possible resource available to him. Vehicles, weapons and as much manpower as needed to cover the entire county. The SAS would be standing by, but he didn’t want them visible unless it was absolutely necessary.
If the virus couldn’t be controlled, the lights could go out sooner than the environmental buffs had forecast. There would be panic in the streets in Europe and across ‘the pond’.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Manhattan, New York City
Baranski watched the limousines roll up to the entrance of the United Nations Assembly Building. Dressed in regulation security uniform; white shirt, black peaked cap, security pass on his right breast, glasses perched halfway down his nose, he stood pretending to study the millboard he was holding. He was in charge of photographing visitors and directing them to the visitors’ lobby under Foucault’s Pendulum.
There was a hold-up with one of the visitors being refused entry. It was getting pretty ugly. His aides were shouting and gesticulating, but his fellow officer wouldn’t budge. Baranski smiled: this little débâcle was helpful to him.
“Hey, Bishop, get on to head of security while I keep these guys occupied.”
“Sure thing, Clementi.” Baranski pretended to speak into his radio then shouted to Clementi.
“He’s sending backup. I’ll keep the queues moving.”
The queues for entry stretched out beyond the main entrance. This was exactly what he had been hoping. He watched the flags of the United Nations fluttering just inside the perimeter fence. To succeed in his mission he would have to act now. He waited for the snarl-up behind the frustrated delegate to get fidgety. Smiling at the visitor staring into the camera, he waited a few seconds then handed him his pass.
“Thank you, sir. You may proceed to the visitors’ lobby.”
Stepping back into the booth, he turned his back to check his concealed weapon then stepped out. He passed the furious delegate who was insisting on entry, walked casually through the entrance, and stood alongside the waiting queue as though checking numbers. Abruptly, he pulled out his gun and fired indiscriminately into the crowd.
Pandemonium broke out. Like scurrying ants the crowd dispersed, running blindly in all directions. A woman screamed and dived behind a black limousine. There was no specific target in mind. The whole exercise was to create as much mayhem as possible. Baranski aimed at the limousine. Terrified, the driver dived sideways. Too late, a bullet struck him in the head through the open window of the vehicle.
Passengers and drivers spilled out of automobiles and ran towards the buildings on 43rd Street. A middle-aged man clutched his chest and fell to the ground, his eyes wide with disbelief. Baranski fired again and brought a colourful African delegate to his knees. Ripping off his false moustache he threw it, along with the gun, cap and security pass, into some nearby bushes. He darted across the United Nations Plaza onto 43rd Street, past the Ford Foundation, and crossed Second Avenue onto East 42nd Street.
He had paid his hotel bill the previous night, claiming he would be leaving for Washington on an early flight. Instead, he booked a day room in a cheap hotel nearby and slipped unnoticed out of the back entrance of the Intercontinental.
Face partially covered by a scarf, he hailed a taxi. In the distance the wail of sirens sounded and faded. By now the emergency services would be on their way. Security would be scouring the area looking for the perpetrator.
In the chaos nobody had spotted him running through the United Nations entrance with the rest of the fleeing crowd. Instead of staying within the relative safety of the perimeter fence, terrified delegates surged out to join the overspill milling outside. It couldn’t have worked out better.
“Where to, buddy?” the cabby asked.
“Penn Station.”
The taxi moved slowly down Madison Avenue and crossed over Fifth Avenue onto East 34th Street. Baranski stiffened when a police officer held up his hand, slowing down traffic ahead of them. He put his hand on his gun, every sense alert. A fire engine, parked against the curb, started up and edged into the flow of traffic. The cop waited a few seconds then waved Baranski’s cab forward.
“You on vacation?” the cabby asked. Baranski ignored the question.
The Empire State Building loomed ahead. Not
far to go. He breathed a sigh of relief when the railroad station came into view.
“Front entrance,” he shouted through the dividing window.
The cab slewed to a halt. He shoved some notes at the driver and darted inside to join milling passengers in the concourse.
Under his Polish alias, Tarek Dudek, he had booked a first-class sleeper on the Amtrak to Chicago. He cursed inwardly. It only ran once a day in the afternoon. Americans! They couldn’t even run a decent train service. He froze when he spotted two uniformed cops watching passengers in the main concourse. Another two stood at the top of the staircase surveying the crowds below.
Earlier that morning he had left a second suitcase in the first-class lounge, telling the attendant that he was going to spend a little time sightseeing until his train was due. After showing his ticket to the overweight receptionist in club class, he found a seat where he could observe the entrance.
The lounge was full of passengers: tired looking businessmen, tourists drinking free coffee from polystyrene cups. Two small boys ran riot amongst the feet of disgruntled passengers, their parents happily munching on potato chips.
In thirty minutes he would be on the train. He could barely conceal his impatience. One of the children tripped over his feet. He glared at him over the top of the New York Times. Something about his look sent the child scurrying and blubbering towards his parents. Little brat, he fumed inwardly. No discipline. No wonder Western youths were so decadent.
“The train for Chicago is now boarding,” a metallic voice announced over the loudspeaker.
Baranski looked at the platform number on the overhead monitor. A Red Cap pushed in through the door.
“Passengers for the Chicago train?” he asked enquiringly.
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